1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine managing apparatus for concentratively managing one or more conditions of a machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
A demand for the addition of a variety of functions and upgrades to a copier has caused the structure and functions of the copier to become more complicated. Also, the number of copiers installed in a company is increasing, so that normal using conditions and function data of these copiers are collected and concentratively managed by a management section of the company or a technical expert in order to manage the use of the copiers as well as attend to maintenance, appropriate and rapid repair for a trouble, and so on.
To realize such management, a copier is known, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,875, which is provided with a communication control unit for communicating with an external apparatus via a communication network to permit periodical or arbitrary communications such as transmission and reception of data between the copier and the external apparatus installed in a management section.
A copier is generally equipped therein with a security device for automatically isolating an abnormal portion upon the occurrence of an abnormality in a part or operation of the copier, for example, a temperature fuse, a thermostat or the like for a fixer of the copier, so as to isolate the circuit of concern when the temperature abnormally rises due to a trouble in a part of the machine, the occurrence of a malfunction or the like, to prevent such trouble from developing into a serious accident.
However, such a security device itself has a problem in that aging changes and deteriorates its constituent parts, which may result in preventing the security device from normal operation, and accordingly causing a delay in shutting off a power supply upon detecting an abnormality of a copier, thereby making an accident more serious.
Further, in a structure in which a security device is released by manipulating a main switch, monitoring and countermeasures of an abnormality are delayed.
Particularly, with a complicated copier which is concentratively managed by an external apparatus, it cannot be expected in practice to appropriately and rapidly attend to machine trouble detected by a copy operator.
In addition, there may occur other inconveniences when communications with the outside are disabled due to an abnormality of a communication control section of a copier, a communication network, or an external apparatus connected thereto, or when an error is included in the communicated contents. When an abnormal condition occurs in a communication system, although it may readily be detected that a communication control unit in the copier is suffering from trouble, it takes a lot of time and procedures to confirm whether the trouble is caused by an abnormality of the copier, a network, or an external apparatus, whereby the copier remains in an inoperative condition for a long time.
When communications are performed with the outside, a power supply of a copier must be turned on. If the power supply is shut off during a data communication with an external apparatus, by reason of termination of a copy operation or the like, the data communication with the outside is interrupted in an incomplete condition with communicated data being damaged, which results in largely damaging the reliability of the copier.
There is also known a copier which is provided with a storage unit for storing a using condition, control data and the like, such that data can be transmitted to an external apparatus installed in a management section or the like on a periodical basis or by a request generated by the management section.
However, when a request for starting a copy operation is generated during a periodical data transmission, or a data transmission requested by the management section or the like, a control unit concurrently performs a control for transmitting stored data and a copy control, that is, the objects to be controlled are increased in number, whereby the processing speed is decreased, and an external network is arbitrated for a long time, which results in impeding other communications as well as increasing a network rental fee.